{"id":53305,"date":"2025-08-10T21:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T02:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=53305"},"modified":"2025-08-11T00:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T05:02:07","slug":"home-sweet-home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=53305","title":{"rendered":"Home, Sweet Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Tokyo Day 3 Part 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWoke up this morning, a little hungover. Must eat greasy food and drink lots of Pocari Sweat.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnd have some Japanese breakfast. Get my stomach moving so that it’ll kick in gear and start absorbing the liquids I’m pounding.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLots of packing to do this morning. Our flight isn’t until later this afternoon, so we’ll take advantage of not checking out until 11am.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright kids, watch Craftee on the tv so that baba and mama can finish packing everything.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, packed. That’s a tight fit, but we managed to fit everything.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nChecked out of our hotel and called an Uber van to haul us and everything to the airport.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLove how they still randomly have these nice old school single family homes with gardens in the middle of Tokyo….now that I think about it, it’s probably where the really rich live.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAre all highways in Tokyo like this? Seemingly the entrance is just from a side random street. They definitely don’t have those 12 lane highways like we have in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThere’s a sumo stadium somewhere there I think.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nA little bit of traffic, but we are not in a hurry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMonorail. Monorails I see randomly at places, but I guess they never quite caught on.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOur driver was a big fan of Google Translate and would speak into his phone and have it speak English back to us. Apparently, on a clear day, you can see Mt. Fuji from this intersection. That’s a regret for us this trip, not being able to see Mt Fuji due to all the clouds.<\/p>\n

Our taxi driver also told us that we are fortunate to leave Japan right now. There’s a small typhoon that’s supposed to hit Japan in the next couple days and that will bring lots and lots of rain to the area. I guess we lucked out!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, here we are.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLots and lots of luggage. Thankful for these carts.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe are here too early, had a wait about 30 minutes or so before the check in line opened up.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOnce the luggage check in opened up, it was a breeze. They even had a premium passenger only line for security that put us immediately to the security check point. Nice.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFound the lounge.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPretty business no nonsense.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThey’ve got an automatic rice machine here. You and decide how much rice yo want and it doles it out.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nYum, more Japanese curry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nKids, sit over there baba and mama are going to sit over here for some space.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nStill slightly hungover, must have coffee. Worth it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, almost time to board. The kids were really excited to ride on these moving walkways. I thought they would have gotten their fill of escalators and moving walkways on this trip, but nope.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPeak Japan right here. A 7 Eleven at the gate area and PACKED full. I would have gotten something too, but it was too crowded to wait in line.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOstomate facility, I remember seeing this last time in Japan as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHey look PL, it’s Shohei. Told you he was really famous.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI discovered that the odd number seats for Polaris business class has a larger area for your feet.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLittle KL already zoned in on his screen.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSo cute that CL uses her coat hanger for hat and cardigan.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nShe looks so grown up.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nKeeping it real in the luxury of business class.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlmost at the runway. But then here we waited for plane after plane after plane to land first.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, this is the last one. Time for us to take off.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBye Japan, til next time. Please don’t change too much too fast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWait…is that what I think it is? Yup, I believe so. The tip of Mt Fuji!!! I did get to see it after all. Unfortunately, we were all buckled in during take off and couldn’t get anyone else to come to my window to look at it. I guess they’ll just need to look at this photo that I took when we get back to Austin.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnother view of Mt. Fuji from the wide angle lens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI had remembered business class food being better. Or maybe I’m just expecting too much?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis works, ice cream. The kids were understandably very excited about it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now, time for a nap. Our flight took off in the afternoon, so hopefully I can fall asleep a little bit.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n5ish hours later, it’s time to get served our next meal.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe kids go to bed earlier than us, so they had no problem falling asleep on the plane.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nSleepy head here just waking up as I walked over to take a photo of her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nZZZZzzzzz.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBack in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nIn the bay area. Salt?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nIt’s in the 60s here. Nice to finally be out of the heat in Japan, then back to the heat in Texas later.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBlah. After rechecking in our luggage, we were dumped outside of the terminal so now need to go through security again at the domestic terminal. Boo!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnd, so so so so so much walking. I think we walked maybe 15 or 20 minutes from one gate to the other.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAt Amex lounge. I guess this is nice, cold brew on draft. We are tired, we are jetlagged.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nKids are hungry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI’m not super hungry, but eating for comfort?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe’ve got like 3 hours here, so stayed here long enough to have both breakfast and lunch.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLittle KL is going crazy, I took him on a walk and found this little playscape inside the airport.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBy little playscape, I mean this is it. Kinda odd, if you wanted a playscape inside the airport, why not have a real one with a few more things?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright, next flight. It’s in the middle of the night in Japan, we are all so tired. And it’s so cold on this plane! We asked for blankets and good thing they had some on hand.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAlright kids, we are almost home.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBack in Austin baby!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnd the crappy setup of the long walk to the Uber pick up at the airport. We had to pay money to rent a luggage cart.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGot back to our house and what did the kids want to eat? Taco Bell. Part inside joke since during our trip in Japan, whenever the kids asked what we were going to eat, RL and I would always joke that we were going to Taco Bell.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCouldn’t wait until the next day, went to pick up Mobad!!! Had to put on her the new outfit we got from Japan. Haha, dumb dog.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRL very carefully brought this sake cup all the way back from Japan. But not long after getting it home, she accidentally broke it. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe kids in some of their purchases from Japan. It’s good to be back home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The End<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Tokyo Day 3 Part 3. Woke up this morning, a little hungover. Must eat greasy food and drink lots of Pocari Sweat. And have some Japanese breakfast. Get my stomach moving so that it’ll kick in gear and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":49963,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-53305","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53305"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53472,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53305\/revisions\/53472"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}